


Ozymandias

by sburbanite



Series: The Dustbin of Broken Dreams [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Beforus, Beforus Ancestors, Multi, POV Kanaya Maryam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5535332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sburbanite/pseuds/sburbanite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Land-dwellers of Beforus are united for the first time in history, but such a peace cannot last when a power-hungry aquatic Prince has his sights fixed on the Mother Grub...</p><p>*Will probably never be finished because I don't feel like this Kanaya is IC enough and I don't think I want to write anything with Eridan as a main character*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ozymandias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write some Beforus and this is what came out. Its a pain coming up with new Beforus names when LostOzian has done such a great job of naming everyone.
> 
> This is set a few thousand years before the Dancestors will hatch, the technology is approximately medieval, and the land trolls live in tribes headed by Jadebloods. The hemospectrum as a high-low concept doesn't exist yet.

He stands before you in full military regalia, although you doubt he's ever seen a day of fighting in his pampered, undersea life. Being surrounded by so many land-dwellers sets his fins on edge, sends them flaring wide with panic every time someone close to him makes a sudden movement. This dandy might be playing at being a diplomat, but he has no love for your people. He addresses you with an accent thick enough to spread on toasted grubloaf. 

"Shepherd, I am knowwn as The Sanguine. I come wwith a message of peace from our young Empress, Her Imperial Compassion. She wwishes for a union between the Land and Sea-dwwellers, and asks only that you surrender control of the Mother Grub. Surely you, wwho wwas once knowwn as The Maternal, can understand her concern for the safety of newly hatched sea-dwweller grubs?" 

The pomposity with which he delivers this so-called entreaty draws a laugh from the Purpleblood standing to your left and a snort of derision from the advisor to your right. Sanguine's nose wrinkles with disgust at the splash of candy-red displayed across the latter's chest. It's the first time he has acknowleged the Nameless troll, the tiny mutantblood who helped you to lead your people to their newfound freedom. The hall falls silent as you answer this jumped-up wiggler of a dignitary. 

"We have no quarrel with the sea-dwelling nations, nor with your Empress. However, the Jadeblooded caste have cared for and protected the Mother for millennia. We will not relinquish that right because the Seafolk fear the United Peoples of the Land. Beforus is big enough for two empires, Sanguine." 

You take a breath and examine your perfect nails, letting him dangle on the hook he's climbed up onto. Implying that you would harm innocent grubs was an unwise decision. 

"As for the fate of Sea-dwelling grubs, we have no interest in anything other than caring for them until they are ready to leave the land. You have my word as The Maternal that they will reach the ocean unharmed. That should be assurance enough for your Empress." 

The Sanguine looks at you along his aquiline nose, head held high with a defiance that is completely undermined by his quivering fins and thickening accent. 

"Vvery wwell, Shepherd." 

His cloak sweeps across the floor dramatically as he turns, exiting the hall just barely below jogging speed. Standing by the door, Justice Sharpeye grins a mouthful of deadly razors at him. She takes a deep sniff of his perfumed hair, licking her lips wickedly as he passes. She isn't impressed. Neither are you. 

\---------------------------------- 

Later, when the day's audiences are over and the fires have been extinguished in the tribal hall, you gather your advisors to discuss your visitor's request. 

"That trumped-up piece of sea-trash had some fucking nerve parading in here like the Prince of Douchebags and demanding that the Mother become some fishy little upstart's slave." 

The Nameless is pacing ceaselessly; Karkat has never been one to take an insult lightly. The little troll is only ever calm when his moirail tends to him, or in your memories of him as a tiny wiggler in your arms. Said moirail tousles his hair gently; the larger troll is a giant wall of serenity that towers over him. 

"Calm your fronds, little bro. Gonna wear yourself a nice fuckin' groove in your lusus' floor at this rate. Don't fret none over some pimped-out motherfucker with gills full of empty words." 

His chosen name might be The Pacifist, but you've seen him tear a troll that made the mistake of treatening his moirail in two. Karkat stops pacing and joins you at the table. His fury settles into its usual simmering irritation. 

"She's not my fucking lusus, Gamzee." he glances at you guiltily, "sorry, Kan." 

Karkat's hatred of chosen names runs deep; even as he approached his Naming Day he had flatly refused to be defined by a single aspect of his personality. It had been a long struggle to get him to address adults by their titles, but in the privacy of your family council, none of you mind him using your birth names. 

Sharpeye laughs, grinning her sabre-smile again. 

"He smelled weak, pampered. Like he'd beg for his life if you so much as looked at him sideways." 

She's all spikes and angles, pointed horns and sharp teeth. Everything about her is sharp, save for the second half of her name. Sharpeye has been blind since wigglerhood, her name was chosen to spite those who called for her culling. No wonder she caught the eye and flushed quadrant of your fiery charge. 

The final member of your council is always the last to speak. As usual, he plays the antagonist. There must always be two sides to every discussion, and this particular troll can see both at once. 

"I wouldn't be tho thure. He looked thoft but there'th thomething there. He hath thome muthcle behind him." 

Karkat rolls his eyes at the sceptic. 

"You always think there's something fucking mysterious about every little nookwhiff who rolls in here. Not everyone is a threat to the fate of the fucking universe, Sol." 

Karkat never takes his kismesis' suggestions seriously. Nominal kismesis, that is. You're pretty sure that your little mutant has found himself in a happily vacillating triangle. He should have been culled, would have been if you hadn't intervened, but now he binds all of you together. He's the driving force keeping you going. 

The Dualiist shakes his head, hisses at Karkat in irritation. You shoot the four-horned troll a warning glare. He knows the rules: no quadrants at the council table. 

"Thut the hell up, _Nameless_. He'th not jutht a primping panthy, as much ath he might look like one. The Theadwellers follow him for thome reathon. I'd bet my lower hornth he hath hith clawth fuck deep in the wiggler Emprethh." 

The two of them bicker for a while, until Sharpeye threatens both of them with a rap from her cane. They fall silent; the only sound is the crackling of torches. As one, they turn toward you. You give your opinion with as much grace as you can muster; the seadweller did nothing to endear himself to you. 

"His choice of name is interesting. Sanguine ostensibly means hopeful, optimistic. A good title for a diplomat and so-called envoy of peace. I confess I feel he chose it for its orignal meaning, however." 

Sharpeye elucidates for the others. 

"Bloodthirsty." she cackles quietly. "Yes, I can see that on him. He wants to be a warlord, not a negotiator." 

You nod. The envoy's delusions of martial prowess had been evident from his overwrought uniform. No warrior ever wore so much gold braid. 

"Indeed. I fear he will try to take the Mother by force. We will need to double the guard around her, triple it if necessary. And we should move the camp away from the ocean at first light. It is time to return to the Capital." 

You sigh, noticing the bags beneath your beloved ward's ruby eyes. Sharpeye's and Dualiist's own unconventional eyes are obscured by glasses of one kind or another, and the Pacifist always looks half-dazed, but you can feel the weariness radiating from them. What a sight you must make for: A cherry-blooded mutant, a blind avatar of justice, a twice-mutated psychic and the calmest Purpleblood who ever lived. In the old world, all of them would have been culled. Now they rule the new one, led by a Jadeblood whose lusus is the Mother Grub herself. 

"For now, my darlings, deliver the orders and get some rest. Tomorrow will be a long day, and there will be much to organize." 

They get up from the table, heading one by one to their tents and recuperacoons. You never ask who is headed for whose. Karkat is the last to leave, standing patiently by while the others file out. He fixes you with his trademark stare. It always works on you, and the little so-and-so knows it. 

"Kan, you have to get some fucking sleep too, OK? I know you spend all day fussing over your goddamn lusus, but you have to let the other Jades handle her now. You're the only thing holding this Union together, the only one who can convince all of the other Jades that grubs who look 'abnormal' shouldn't get a stab to the blood-pusher rather than a wiggling-day party. You're the only one stopping any troll who can't produce genetic material on demand from being culled on the spot. If you won't take care of yourself, I'll fucking do it for you." 

You laugh and stride over to him, folding him into an embrace. There is no word for what you feel for this troll who was once your whole world. It's joy and pain and pride and hope all mixed into one, but it's never pity. To you, Karkat is the most important troll in the whole of Beforus. What's more, he knows exactly how to play your feelings like a stringed dance-instrument. The idea of other grubs like him being culled makes bile rise in your throat. 

"I will, darling." you whisper, your hand cradling his head the way it used to when he barely reached up to your waist. 

He pulls away, embarrassed at your babying, and heads for his tent. Your bodyguards, both loyal Jades, fall in behind you as you make your way to yours. 

Your thoughts are consumed with politics and negotiation; later, you will wonder how you could fail to notice both guards being cut down, their bodies falling to the ground as you continue on your way. The life fades from their eyes while you mull over inconsequential diplomatic minutiae, the nuts and bolts of keeping millions of trolls from murdering one another.

The knife pressing against your throat certainly gets your attention, however.


End file.
